


Heroes in the Stars

by blacksatinpointeshoes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Bad Wolf, Daleks - Freeform, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8473453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacksatinpointeshoes/pseuds/blacksatinpointeshoes
Summary: Rose doesn't make it back in time.





	

The doors of the TARDIS swing open seconds too late. All that had once been Satellite Five was still, the last words of a Time Lord nestling themselves in the crevices of this small, dark room where he made his final stand.

_You will be exterminated._

_Maybe it's time._

Perhaps, if one listens hard enough, they can hear the cry of the Daleks still echoing and immortalized in this moment. The Doctor did not scream or fight back or resist, just accepted the end as it came rushing towards him in the hot, white blue beam of Dalek's light. He had seen it done to so many others. Now it was his turn.

_What are you, coward or killer?_

Moments before, white knuckles gripped the unrefined Delta Wave, ice blue irises filled with a great and awful terror. The Doctor had not been so afraid in centuries. There have been so many decisions made, lives to save and people left behind, and yet this is the only one that matters.

_Coward._ That is the final answer, accompanied by a sigh of relief. _Any day._

The Doctor's body is sprawled on the floor now, one hand extended as if reaching for something – or someone. There is no hue of regeneration, no explosion and rebirth, just the end of the end, the final Time Lord gone.

He is at rest. Rose is safe, and that is what matters.

The Doctor could be sleeping, if the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest had continued on. If his hearts were still beating. His eyes are closed, and a faint smile of defiance teases his lips. The remaining Dalek in the room, the Dalek who now has the claim of destroying the Time Lords once and for all, cannot fathom it. Daleks do not have a sense of defiance. They hate, and they destroy. The Daleks hate the Doctor even as he is dead, with his smile that mocks them in its innocence and sincerity.

_Strike him again,_ the Emperor orders from his viewing screen. _I want him dead._

As if the Doctor is not dead enough already.

The Bad Wolf takes halting steps from the TARDIS, her head swinging around as she searches the room for her Doctor, the man that Rose Tyler loves. The Bad Wolf understands this feeling. The girl and the eternal have become one.

"Where is he?" The words are nearly afraid, and almost desperate. The Time Vortex glowed nearly white hot as it spilled out behind her, tendrils snaking across the floor and covering it like a blanket. "Where is the Doctor?"

If Daleks could laugh, the Emperor would be chortling at Rose and the Bad Wolf with their glowing eyes and immeasurable power. But the only thing they cannot do is turn back time.

"HE IS DEAD!" the Emperor bellows, impassive face never changing. "YOUR PRECIOUS TIME LORD IS GONE." The nearby Dalek swivels towards Rose, its weapon aimed at her as the Emperor continues to speak. "AND YOU HAVE CREATED YOURSELF AN ABOMINATION."

_"EXTERMINATE!"_ screeches the Dalek, ready to end this Bad Wolf the way it ended the Doctor: once and for all. Quietly, with a beam to the chest, and it will be done.

The Bad Wolf stops it with her hand, as if it is the arrow of a laser pointer, trivial and unimportant. "No," she says, her voice echoing through the room and pushing the Dalek back with the sheer power of it. "I am the Bad Wolf, and I will not be exterminated."

"YOUR CAUSE IS DONE FOR," the Emperor booms. "YOU ARE NO ONE BUT A DYING GIRL. THE VORTEX WILL DESTROY YOU."

"No," Rose says again, the sound of her voice growing stronger. _"You_ are tiny _. You_ are nothing. I can see the whole of time and space." The Bad Wolf raises her arms, glowing from the tips of her fingertips down to her toes. "Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them."

The Dalek who killed the Doctor disintegrates into a pale sheen of dust.

"YOU ARE UNBRIDLED POWER," the Emperor seethes, "YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A CREATURE OF EMOTION AND YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED."

The Vortex pulses with Rose Tyler's gentle and oh-so-human heart. It hums with her yellow gold and pink soul and wriggles into the spaces between the Dalek Emperor's existence. "Oh yeah?" Rose's words are quiet and jam-packed with her London accent and fierce independence. "Try me."

The Dalek Emperor has no need for sarcasm or impudence and orders its soldiers to exterminate her again. The Bad Wolf tosses aside the rays like toys.

"Everything must come to dust," the entity whispers, golden light escaping through her mouth and weaving into her hair. "All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."

The pure, rich colour of the Time Vortex washes over the Daleks' stronghold. Their fleet dissolves, and the footmen, so proud in their metal shells, crumble.

"I WILL NOT DIE," the Emperor screeches. "I _CANNOT_ DIE."

Its final words leave a metallic tang in the air.

"We all die," Rose and the Bad Wolf say as one. "We all end."

The Vortex dominates the human. The immortal embers surpass the fleeting sparks. Something has shifted in the universe, and balance is returned.

The Daleks are dust.

The inhabitants of Satellite five are slumped on the ground with their weapons in their hands.

This was not a peaceful day.

Rose Tyler and her Doctor are lying side by side with their faces turned up, their fingers reaching out towards each other as though for comfort. They could be statues.

They are so still.

They do not move.

Not one twitch.

Not one gasp.

Not a single sign of life.

And yet they smile: the Doctor's in defiance and Rose's in hope.

Hope that she has saved the people that she has come to save, and hope for the Earth that lays obliviously below. The humans on Earth cannot tell that anything has happened. Civilisation does not know the great threat they have just evaded.

They do not know of the heroes immortalised in the stars.


End file.
